Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/29

 count the seed-pearls in the rim, while the "artistic effect" of that wicket-gate seemed to her "too pretty for anything." The rigidity of the attitude quite escaped her uncritical eye, and she failed to observe that the accustomed look of mild benevolence which sat so well on her plain face was here turned to an expression of almost savage intensity, as much out of place as a frown on a rabbit's countenance.

Yes, Aunt Betsy's dream was realized. She held in her hand twelve unmistakable likenesses of her "Sunday things," and they gave her as much pleasure as the most brilliant colored paper-doll had caused her when she was a little girl in the old house, and could hear the delightful rattle of the blue and red and yellow papers. Even a bit of color was not lacking to her new treasures, for the photographer had touched the cheeks of the counterfeit Aunt Betsy with spots of vivid carmine.

A spot almost as bright glowed in each cheek of the flesh-and-blood Aunt Betsy as she descended into the sitting-room, not, indeed, to "surprise her folks." She could not yet rid herself of the feeling of guilt connected with the whole transaction, and she dreaded lest her mother should call her a fool, as she had promptly done whenever her docile daughter had committed any mild indiscretion, such as wishing for a "false front" when her hair became gray, or wondering whether the minister, when he came to tea, might not pre-